


For Now

by little_bee



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Episode: s02e09 The Gate, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:20:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26896582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_bee/pseuds/little_bee
Summary: An alternative take on what happened in episode 09 after Nancy burned Will to expel the Demogorgon
Relationships: Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler
Kudos: 13





	For Now

**Author's Note:**

> My first try writing fanfiction, so feel free to leave pointers in the comments

And suddenly everything was quiet but for a ringing in in the ear and the memory of Wills gut-wrenching scream a minute ago. Slowly looking over Jonathans shoulder, Nancy saw a crying Joyce bending over a pale and motionless Will laying on the small cot in Hoppers cabin. Her heart stopped for a second, he looked so small and helpless and only the faint movement of his eyelids and his chest indicated that he was still alive. Next to her ear she heard Jonathan murmuring the name of his brother of his brother over and over again, it seemed like a prayer , a prayer for everything to be over, for his family to still be alive, for the horrendous creatures to finally disappear… it was the same list she kept repeating in her head over and over again. How simple life had been, Nancy thought, when the most important worries on her mind had been how she succeeded in her last English test or if Steve would like her new turtleneck shirt. Times, in which she would have never imagined burning her little brothers best friend with a fire poker to exorcise a mind-reading monster, after sharing a dusty guest bed with Jonathan Byers while visiting a mad vodka-drinking investigative journalist to avenge her best friends death. “What is the weirdest part, me or the fire poker?” She could hear Jonathan mumble in her head and smiled faintly. Well, at least not everything has been bad.  
Slowly, she turned in his arms to extract herself from the crushing embrace and lifted her arms to his face. “Jonathan, can you look at me for a second?” she asked softly. The look on his face nearly took her breath away, never had she seen someone whose eyes showed such a direct connection to his heart and soul, and no one had looked at her like this, so distraught and hopeful at the same time. “Is, is he alive?” His tone showed that a no for an answer would mean that his heart would shatter in pieces, maybe never to mend again. “His pulse is weak, but he is still breathing, I think. We must get him to the hospital as soon as we can! “Joyce’s distraught voice shook them into action. Within a few minutes, Jonathan with a still unconscious Will in his arms and Joyce talking to him and begging him for a reaction of any kind never leaving their side were tumbling out of the shabby hut, Nancy following close behind with the car key dangling in her hand. As soon as they had Will safely lying on the back seat and the car doors closed, Nancy hit the gas pedal through the floor. Squeaking, the car bucked into movement and they bolted down the dirt road leading from the cabin to Mirkwood (the boys nickname clearly stuck) and then into town. Nancy’s mind kept drifting to the boy next to her who hadn´t uttered a word since they left the cabin, at the same time trying to concentrate on their surroundings and the fastest route to the hospital. Time flew, and as soon as they reached the hospitals parking lot and she pushed the brakes, the Byers flew out of the car and towards the brightly illuminated sliding doors.  
Nancy could only follow them with her eyes until the doors closed and she was left in the dark. That was the moment when the events of the last hours caught up to her, and she drew a sharp breath. “Now was definitely not the moment to have a panic attack in your boyfriends car in the middle of the night while you´re sitting all alone in a parking lot!” she thought to her self while furiously rubbing her burning eyes. She tried to think of her happy place, the place which filled her heart with warmth and peace even when the world around her kept crumbling to pieces, a moment which only happened a few weeks ago. She tried to visualize Jonathan in the schools darkroom, furrowing his brow concentrating on the difficult task of developing the photos he took the weekend before while the whole gang met for a boardgame tournament. Herself, Nancy saw sitting on the wooden table at the back of the room, careful not to disturb the peaceful mood. This memory had anchored her to reality in times when she felt like everything was too much and not enough at once, and it had never failed to do so… until now. Now she only felt her breaths getting faster and more shallow, felt the numbing cold from outside creeping into her body until she felt like her body couldn´t take it anymore and she curled herself into a ball on the front seat of the car. “What if burning Will with the fire poker wasn´t the heroic thing to do, what if the only thing I did was hurt him more? What if he won´t get better, what if I only made everything worse? That must be the reason why Joyce and Jonathan won´t come back outside and why they didn´t remember leaving me here, Will is dying and I killed him! Jonathan was right, I should have left him alone when he still had a chance, now he´ll leave me and I´ll be left alone again!!!!” Alone, alone… the word kept growing and growing until it was the only thing on her mind. Her body started to shake irrepressible and her desperate sobs filled the car. “Please, not now again! I can´t take this anymore, I can´t!” She cried into the void, but nothing came back, she still was left alone with her thoughts. Things started to spin out of control while her thoughts started to spiral, until everything around her started to fade out.  
Suddenly a soft hand landed on her shoulder, and she bolted upright with a gut-wrenching scream.  
“Nance, Nance it´s me! Please, look at me!”. With a last sob she threw herself into Jonathan’s arms. She couldn´t bear to look him in the eyes and see the truth of her thoughts shinning back at her, couldn´t bear to see the rejection she expected. “I´m so so sorry for leaving you here! I could only think about taking Will to the doctor and to seeing him taken care of, but as soon as they took him away for medical examination and I got my wits together again I ran back to get you! My heart stopped for a second as I stepped out of the hospital and saw you shaking and crying in the car, what happened? Did one of the Demogorgons came back and hurt you? Please, Nance, talk to me?”  
“Is, is he alive?” Nancy whispered into his sweater. “Will, is he alive? What did I do to him?” Jonathan cleared his throat “He is, for now. The doctor already said it was a close call, that if we only took half an hour longer to get to the hospital they couldn´t save him anymore, but now they seemed pretty hopeful. And you know who is responsible for that? You Nance, you! You drove like the devil to get us here, you had the guts to do what nobody else did and burn this, this thing out of him!” “You really think so?” Nancy asked with a small voice.  
Slowly, Jonathan loosened their close embrace to clasp her face between his hands. Nancy gasped at the contrast, finally she felt some warmth coming back into her body. “Of course I do! For the last year, you´ve always been the brave one, the one who decided which risks were worth taking, while I trailed behind like a lost puppy! You were the one keeping me sane when Will was missing, and even more so after he came back! You´ve broken my shell, Nancy Wheeler, and I´m extremely glad for that! And now you ask me what you did wrong, after you saved my brothers life?” Jonathans eyes shone bright with the weight of his passionate speech. “I know it´s hard for me to show how I really feel, but you´re the best thing that happened to me in the last year, I think in my entire life!”  
Nancy felt like she was floating, one by one, her worries shrank and withdrew, back to a small black spot deep in her head, until all that was left was an all-consuming feeling of fatigue. “Can I see him, can I see Will? Just for a second, they won´t even notice me!” “The doctor said that the thing he needs most at the moment is rest, so we were banned from his room until tomorrow.” Only now, Nancy recognized the black rings under his eyes, he seemed to like he would pass out from exhaustion rather sooner than later. “ I´m sure they´re doing their best for him, and you’re not helping him or your mom if you don´t rest now and land yourself in the hospital, too! Please, let me take you home and I promise you we will visit him first thing tomorrow morning! But for now, is it enough for you to know he´s save and taken care of?” Jonathan drew a deep breath, and suddenly Nancy could see one of his signature crooked smiles blooming in the corner of his mouth, tired and barely recognisable, but there. “For now”, he acknowledged with a small nod as Nancy started the car engine, “For now”.


End file.
